The first sign of spring came not in a burst of color but in the sound of water. For months the brook outside our tent-cabin had lain silent, locked beneath its glassy armor. One morning in late thaw, I woke up to the sound of a steady drip, soft and insistent, like fingers tapping the edge of a drum.
Blue Fire heard it too, she lifted her head from the crook of my arm and gave a soft and questioning chirr. Her breath made little clouds in the chilly air. "Yes," I whispered, smiling into the dim canvas light, "the world is waking up slowly."
We pushed open the flap and stepped out into a morning washed in silver mist. The snow still lay thick, but patches of earth had begun to show - dark, sodden, and smelling of life. Blue Fire padded ahead, claws clicking against ice that was turning brittle beneath her weight. The brook sang its thin song as water threaded through cracks in the ice. Blue Fire crouched low, nose nearly touching the trembling surface. A shard of ice gave way with a gentle crack, causing her to leap back, startled. She tilted her head as if to scold the brook for mischief.
I laughed at her reaction, the sound carrying in the cool air. "Careful, you bold thing." She answered with a short trill and splashed one claw experimentally into the shallow water sending droplets scattering. Then she darted downstream, her blue-marked back flashing whenever the sun broke through the thinning clouds.
We spent the morning exploring the edges of the forest, where the first shoots of wild garlic poked through the slush. I knelt to gather a few tender greens while Blue Fire rooted through a heap of fallen branches, tossing sticks aside with her snout. When she uncovered a patch of damp moss, she chirped, delighted, and pressed her cheek against the cool green.
"Oh you had missed the smell of growing things," I said. I had too. Above, the cedars dripped steadily, each drop catching a shard of sunlight as it fell. The scent of thaw, wet bark and dark soil, was sharp and sweet. It filled my lungs with something similar to hope.
By afternoon we reached a meadow still half-buried in snow. The wind carried the distant call of migrating geese. Blue Fire froze, ears pricked, eyes tracking the sky. A wedge of dark shapes cut across the blue, their cries bright as bells. Her tail waved in excitement. She gave a soft, warbling note, half curiosity and half yearning.
"They are heading north," I murmured, "the season is changing." For a long time we stood together, watching the birds vanish into the pale horizon. The last echoes of their calls faded, leaving only the brook's growing music and the whisper of melting snow.
When we returned to our tent-cabin at dusk, the door flap stirred in a gentle breeze, and the scent of damp earth followed us inside. I stoked the fire and set the wild garlic to simmer in a pot of broth. Blue Fire curled close, head resting on my boot. Her eyes gleamed with a restless brightness, the kind that meant adventure would soon call again.
Outside, the forest dripped and murmured. Winter's grip was loosening. Something, perhaps a next chapter of our journey, waited just beyond the first green shoots. And in the hush between one season and the next, I felt it too - the quiet thrill of change.
…
Winter has a way of making time slow until it feels like a breath held too long, and then, without warning, it exhales. I woke before dawn to the soft percussion of snowmelt dripping from the roof planks I had nailed across the old canvas years ago. Each drop landed with a hollow plink against the rim of one of my tin pots, and the sound threaded through the thin walls of the tent like the first notes of a forgotten song.
Blue Fire stirred beside the hearth, a low and rumbling trill vibrating through her small chest. Only three months out of the shell and already she had grown into her limbs with a speed that startled me. The hatchling awkwardness was fading; her movements now carried the supple certainty of a young hunter. When she stretched, the faint blue flame that licked along the ridge of her shoulders and neck flared for a heartbeat, a ghost-light against the canvas shadows.
I pulled my blanket tighter and sat up, the cold of the makeshift floorboards seeping through the soles of my socks. Outside, a wind moved through the pines, a quieter wind than the hard winter gales of the past few weeks. It smelled faintly of running water and damp earth, as though the forest had begun to stir beneath its white shroud.
Blue Fire blinked at me with eyes the color of amber caught in sunlight. She chirred softly and nosed the hem of my coat, impatient for the morning ritual. I smiled despite the chill and fed a twist of birch bark to the embers. The fire caught, crackled, and threw a warm orange across her blue-lit feathered fur. Breakfast was a simple thing, smoked trout from the river and dried berries with the last of the autumn walnuts. Blue Fire tilted her head, waiting for the small fillet I always set aside, she snapped it from my fingers with delicate precision, careful of her teeth.
While she ate I stepped outside, boots crunching into a crust of snow softened overnight. The forest lay hushed but no longer brittle; somewhere beneath the surface, water was moving again. A single crow called from the top of a pine and the sound rang clear, like a stone dropped into still water.
Blue Fire bounded after me, leaping over the low snowbanks with a grace that had sharpened each week. Her feathered blue flame–like mark caught the weak sunlight and shimmered faintly, leaving a thin trail of light as she moved. I crouched and pressed a palm to the snow. Beneath the thin layer of ice, the soil was damp, winter's first surrender.
For a long while we simply walked, following the familiar path down to the creek. The air was heavy with the scent of wet bark and pine resin. The creek itself, hidden for months under a lid of ice, whispered now in trickles and sudden rivulets, like secrets it had kept all season.
Blue Fire lowered her muzzle to the water's edge, steam rising where her breath met the thaw. She gave a sharp, surprised chirp when the ice beneath her paws cracked and sank with a soft plop. I laughed, an easy sound that startled me after weeks of quiet, and she flicked her tail, pretending she hadn't meant to startle herself.
It struck me then how quickly she had become the rhythm of my days. Three months ago the forest had been only mine - its silences, its long winter nights, its careful routines. Now the shape of every hour bent toward her, feeding and listening for the soft scuff of her claws against the wooden floor when she dreamed. Solitude had been my constant companion; now it felt like a story I had once heard but could no longer fully recall.
By midmorning the light turned a pale gold, the kind that belongs more to spring than winter. We climbed the low ridge where the pines thinned and the sky opened in a wide gray bowl. From there I could see the smoke of my own hearth rising in a crooked line between the trees, the canvas tent half-hidden beneath the patchwork roof I had built over many seasons. Its shape looked almost like a memory of a house, half wild and half human, held together by stubbornness and the patience of years.
Blue Fire pressed against my leg, warm through the layers of wool. She gave a soft croon that sounded almost like a question. I rested a hand on the curve of her neck and felt the steady pulse beneath the small tuft of mane that was starting to grow on her head and neck. "First thaw," I whispered, more to the forest than to her, "it won't be long now." The wind shifted, carrying the damp scent of pine needles and the far-off rush of water freed from ice. I thought of the autumn night when I had found her egg, how the smoke from the poachers' fires had clung to my clothes for days, how the tiny heartbeat beneath that mottled shell had seemed impossibly fragile. Now she stood beside me, strong and sure, a flicker of living blue and sand against the soft white world.
A hawk wheeled high above, its cry threading through the thinning clouds. Blue Fire lifted her head and answered with a sharp, ringing call of her own, a sound that made the hair on my arms rise. The hawk tilted its wings and circled once before gliding away toward the dark pines. I watched it vanish and felt the quiet settle around us once more, not the fearful hush of smoke and blood that had first brought her into my life, but a quiet that promised change. The forest was waking and with it, so were we.